The Book of Trouble: A Romance

by Ann Marlowe

A sexy, intimate and fearless account of a shattering love affair between a charistmatic Afghan man and a Jewish American writer infatuated with his culture, The Book of Trouble is also a provocative and original exploration of the so-called "clash of civilizations." Marlowe's vivid, gritty evocation of daily life in Afghanistan brings to life a luminous place she thinks of as "the morning of the world". She finds a similar re-discovery of feeling...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151011311
• ISBN13: 9780151011315
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

So much to think about

I liked this book very much and have recommended it to friends. I'm sure I disagree with Marlowe's politics--especially regarding the war in Iraq--as much as anybody else, but that didn't dim my appreciation for her work nor make any of her ideas suspect. She brings her intelligence and the perspective that comes from having led an interesting life to her interesting range of topics; that's a combination that wins my attention and admiration every time. I also found this a very brave work, in that the most tender areas that she probes are located on her own heart.

A Must read !

Very deep enlightening and well written. I was so struck by this wonderful love, or non love story, that I read it in one sitting ! Ann writes with passion nothing is held back, buy it today !!

A Different Kind of Love Letter....

An intimate intellectual travelogue about sex and culture at unusual personal depth, Ann Marlowe's The Book Of Trouble read itself quickly. I was saving it for an impending vacation because it seemed a clever choice for traveling with a lover, but I started sampling and wound up consuming the whole thing before I packed. Training her Harvard-honed overachieving mind on a tasty range of sexual, sociological, and cultural targets, Marlowe manages to turn her pursuit of a younger Afghan man into an exploration of her family's troubled history, womanhood in Muslim society, and the various ways contemporary Americans attempt to control (and effectively suppress) romance and lust. Marlowe can annoy at times with steely strictures, but that's part of her disarming charm as a writer. Most of the judgments here are about her. Even when she tearfully mulls the wisdom and phrasing of chasing a lost lover, she rarely whines. She struck me as looking for truth in her experiences, as if peeling an onion that she fears her heart has become after decades of hip romancing. The book is a grand tide of digression, but its structure reliably supports her queries as she falls in love and follows Old Glory to Mazar-i-Sherif, Kabul, and Baghdad, all the while yearning for a perfect intimacy that she fears she wasn't born to have. In asking why this is and whether it must continue to be, she entertains the mind that overlooks the heart and she provokes readers to contemplate their own solitude in this busy "sexy" world.

Excellent

This is a wonderful, wide ranging, engaging memoir. It's all here - cousin marriage, intergenerational sex, cultural differences (and not the tedious starch you get served up in so much travel writing), criticisms of American society, a strong heart and powerful searching intelligence. "The Book of Trouble" is at the outset a love story. West Village writer meets significantly younger man from Afghanistan. Is he acceptable as a lover? No. Does she even consider him? No. Do they get together? Yes, briefly, savagely, and then sadly: it's all over. Ann Marlowe is an acutely observant viewer of herself, and those around her: what they say, and what they think. She understands that what love is based on is a kind of tribalism, that you fall for people who reflect or refract the milieu you were raised in. The distance between herself, an American Jew, and Amir, an Afghan Muslim is, as she notes, much less than might be first imagined. Pursuing Amir, Marlowe is also pursuing Afghanistan, and the Middle East, and that chewy topic: America. What do Muslims have that the contemporary US has lost? Can it be retrieved? How? The love affair with Amir is always gently nudged back to politics and place. Picky giddy people should beware. This is probably not a book to read if you think that someone like Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi cannot be a rogue, and also charming. It's not for you if you imagine it's witty to cast aspersions on the author just because whipping-boy-du-jour James Frey has praised it. It's not for you if you like ideas and events neatly dissected and served on a plate like so much mental sashimi: appetising at the outset, but then an hour later you're hungry again. Yes, "The Book of Trouble" has troubling themes, but their treatment is invigorating and satisfying.